Development Updates

Cannon Brawl is a game that seems like it would feel right at home on consoles. It’s great fun to play with your friends on the couch and supports gamepad really well. And on that note we’ve got exciting news! Thanks to the fine folks at www.blitworks.com, Cannon Brawl will be coming soon to PS4! We’ll keep you updated when we know the release date!

Want to play Cannon Brawl with your friends? We’re releasing a free demo so your friends can try it out!

We want to get our multiplayer lobbies bursting with new people so you can always find opponents, whether you’re using our matchmaking system or inviting a friend. That’s why we’ve decided to open up the game for players to try it free.

The free demo allows you to play skirmish games against the AI, unranked multiplayer, and you can accept invites to friend matches from owners of the full game. You’ll get one airship pilot and 5 war machines to try out.

The full game includes much more. It’s got a twenty mission campaign with boss battles, nightmare mode, tons more airship pilots and units to unlock, puzzle levels, and competitive ranked multiplayer.

A demo you say, so why is it called Free-To-Play?

A big part of Cannon Brawl is its intense multiplayer matches. We want demo players and owners of the full game to be able to fight each other in unranked multiplayer matches. With steam matchmaking, this ends up being called Free-To-Play. But for Cannon Brawl, you can think of it as a demo. There are no microtransactions or in game purchases. If you like the free demo, you can buy and enjoy the full game like you would with any other demo.

If you missed our show over on the Lobby at Gamespot with Chris Watters and Danny O’Dwyer, catch up on the action here. Pete does a little trash talk, Theresa battles insane AI, and Danny fights it out in local PvP.

“It’s extremely difficult to create a unique piece of art in an industry that’s awash with same-y titles, watered down sequels and plain ol’ rip-offs, so it’s important for gamers to not let rare jewels slip through the cracks. Turtle Sandbox’s Cannon Brawl is just such a jewel.” – Andrew Heaton WeGotThisCovered.com

“I can honestly say that Cannon Brawl is one of the most interesting games I’ve played in quite some time.” – Liam Dawe GameingOnLinux.com

“Cannon Brawl is exactly what I want a game to be: easy to understand, fun to play and constantly giving me things to do.” – Justin Last snackbar-games.com

“Cannon Brawl also brings back something that I miss: sitting next to your friends and playing games. ” – Jonathan A TheVideoGameBacklog.com

“Seamlessly combining a strategy game with a surprising amount of depth and fast paced action definitely makes Cannon Brawl stand out from the bunch. Smooth gameplay, a solid campaign and fun multiplayer add up to one solid game. If you’re looking for a strategy title that pushes you to be on top of your game look no further.” – Ishmael Romero Twinfinite.com

“The game is simply stellar at what it sets out to do.” – Luke Siuty IndieGameMag

“Overall, Cannon Brawl is a wonderful experience that should find its way onto everyone’s computer. The game is $15 on Steam and there’s even an option to buy a two pack of it for $20. The price is easily worth it for either option as players will spend several hours on the Campaign and even more with the multiplayer.” – Billy White GameIndustryNews

“It’s just one of those games that will make you thankful for the Indie developer movement, because it’s fun as hell to play, doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to buy, and is curated by talented developers that will stop at nothing to ensure the gaming public remains pleased with its offerings.” - Matt Heywood Entertainment Buddha

“Comprised mostly of action and doing away with the filler, Cannon Brawl is a game aimed towards the strategy fans that just want to get into the game and start calculating the most efficient trajectory towards your opponents castle for your projectile. ” – Gabriel Mejia Two Dash Stash

“Turtle Sandbox has made a strategy game with a ton of joy. Cannon Brawl is delightful and chaotic. It’s fast-paced and strategic. It is a combination of like-minded ideas I’m surprised haven’t been brought together before. Ultimately, Cannon Brawl is the most fun I have had playing a multiplayer strategy game in years, standing tall in its storied genre.” - Clint Prentice Error Not Found

“It is incredibly difficult for me to not drift back over to Steam and start playing again.” – Courtney Holmes Pixelkin

“The campaign is probably one of the best tutorials I’ve ever played.” – Yolanda Green G3AR.com

“This real-time, artillery-focused offering from Turtle Sandbox Games more than stands on its own two feet, with plenty to offer fans of earlier series such as Worms or newcomers alike.” - Sophie Halliday ZTGD

“Overall, the experience of Cannon Brawl is very fun. I found humor in the dialogue and addiction in the strategic gameplay…The online multiplayer delivers high replay value, as there is nothing more challenging than facing off against another person.” – Gregory Bargas GamingEnthusiast.net

“Cannon Brawl does a great job at making strategy feel accessible. Its fast paced gameplay gives you all the stress and excitement of a strategy game without the agonizing micromanagement and learning curve. ” - Jared Wolthuis Enemy Slime

“That strategy and balance of the towers and pilots unlocked in both single player, and multiplayer through XP are what will keep you coming back. ” – Zachary Slater TimeDoctor.org

“I love a good artillery game and Cannon Brawl just might be a great one. As well as measuring angles and projectile strength, the gorgeous RTS hybrid from Turtle Sandbox has players managing resources and locations across its 20 single player missions.” – Adam Smith Rock Paper Shotgun

“It’s a game for blowing each other up, and it does this with a sense of fun that is hard not to be caught up in.” – Brendan egmr.net

“Cannon Brawl melds the RTS and tower defense genres into a narcotic blend whose sum – in this age of derivation – overshadows its parts. The gameplay hooks sink in early, and they sink in deep. With such tasty bait, the hardest part of Cannon Brawl is putting the controller down for a break … but just for a few minutes.” – Josh Kowbel wiki game guides

“I personally keep coming back to the game as I still find myself baffled at how something so simple can be such a complicated metagame, and I find myself enjoying every second of it.” – Alex R – Gamers Assault Weekly

San Francisco, CA–September 19th 2014– Let the battle begin! Cannon Brawl, a 2D action RTS with destructible terrain is launching its final release for PC, Mac, and Linux.

Featured as a PAX 10 selection, as well as having won the Activision Independent Games award, Cannon Brawl is the highly anticipated debut title from San Francisco based indie outfit, Turtle Sandbox. The tiny team, comprised of Theresa Duringer and Peter Angstadt is proud to unveil version 1.0 of Cannon Brawl.

Players must think quickly to out-strategize their opponents in this real-time 2D artillery game. Claim floating islands and drop war machines from airships to conquer completely destructible maps. Carefully aim skillshots with each war machine, but don’t take too long – opponents retaliate in real-time!

The game is jam packed with a trove of war machines to unlock and explore, airships to pilot, and plenty of unique maps that will push players to figure out new plans of attack in defeating their opponents. With unlockable weapons and defenses to discover throughout the campaign and in the Armory, players will find plenty of new strategies to invent for the most efficient victory.

“Cannon Brawl combines classic artillery play with the exciting pacing of an RTS,” said Theresa Duringer, co-founder of Turtle Sandbox, “There’s a tension between perfecting the trajectory of your next shot and keeping up your APM to maximize each volley of your onslaught.”

Three years in the making, Cannon Brawl is bursting with content:

Thirty seven 2D destructible maps

A full single player campaign, with twenty missions and ten puzzle levels

Competitive online and local multiplayer modes with seven maps to battle across

Today is the big day, Cannon Brawl is now 1.0! We’re really proud of what we’ve accomplished. Cannon Brawl is fun, looks fantastic, and explores new areas of design for strategy games. It’s everything we imagined it would be: full campaign, puzzle levels, and deep and competitive online multiplayer.

Cannon Brawl has come a long way from the little prototype I made back in college which used to be called Dstroyd. It won the Activision Independent Games Competition, which launched me and Theresa’s journey into full time indie game development as Turtle Sandbox. It was selected in the 2012 PAX 10, which helped get our name out there and was the first time we demoed it publicly. We launched our alpha in July of 2013 on Early Access, and today we’re now ready to call it done! Of course, we’ll still support it with futures patches and updates.

Thanks to everyone who played the Early Access builds, we got a ton of great feedback and it’s made the game better than we ever thought possible. It’s been great to have players who play the game at a higher level than we do and can help balance and tune in ways we couldn’t have done on our own.

We’ll be streaming on Twitch from 12pm-8pm PDT. Stop on by to join our celebration of launch day and see some exciting match ups in online multiplayer! And last but not least, check out our new launch trailer:

With just two days left until Cannon Brawl’s final release on the 19th, we’re happy to announce native support for Linux! Now you can play Cannon Brawl through Steam on Windows, Mac and …. *drum-roll* … Linux! We want to show our support for the Linux community and want to be part of the movement to bring more games to this beloved platform. We hope you enjoy.

As always if you run into any issues let us know on the Steam forums and we’ll help get them fixed. Keep an eye out on September 19th for our official launch announcement. Our final ship date is only a couple days away!

The ever talented Maxwell Mcgee runs a podcast called Dinner with the Devs where he grabs some developrs, some dinner, and some recording equipment and makes a podcast. If you’re curious about game development and what kind of people these game developers are, it’s makes for a good listen.

Theresa and I had the pleasure of being in the latest episode, which you can listen to here. Normally in interviews and podcasts, Theresa and I end up talking a lot about what we do (Cannon Brawl), but not so much about who we are. So it was fun to do this podcast with Maxwell where we covered more about how we met on a crystal dig, how to use ouija boards, and other types of strange stories we’ve been a part of. I enjoyed listening to it just as much as I enjoyed hanging out with Theresa and Maxwell recording it.

Dinner with the Devs has a lot of other good podcasts with other indie devs, so I recommend taking a listen!